


You and I

by Mozzarella



Category: Supernatural, Yoü And I - Lady Gaga (Song)
Genre: M/M, Obsession, confusing non-linear storytelling, death!fic, light implications of body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5573077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mozzarella/pseuds/Mozzarella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up in another world where Dean and Sam Winchester were raised by Mary, and always reminded that "Angels are watching over you." The Dean of this world knew this to be true. After all, he'd seen one, the night of the fire. An angel in a trench coat that saved his life.</p><p>This is the story of the man who loved too much, the angel who didn't want to let go, and the man who put all these events into motion.</p><p>Based on Lady Gaga's music video of her song "You and I".</p><p>(Imported from dreamwidth, written in 2012)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and I

**Author's Note:**

> I read an explanation once of the video in a youtube comment which I can no longer track down. It basically says that in the video, the mermaid and the man were in love. They dreamt of a wedding together, being together, but she couldn't get out of water. So he tries to change her to fulfill her dream and ends up killing her.   
> He remakes her, but the second version, full human, leaves him... but eventually, with all the memories of their past, she comes back to him.
> 
> MORE NOTES TO COME AT THE END OF THE STORY
> 
> No explanation on the piano in the middle of the field.

  
**Title:** You and I  
**Author:** [](http://mozzarellaroses.livejournal.com/profile)[**mozzarellaroses**](http://mozzarellaroses.livejournal.com/) (ON LIVEJOURNAL)  
**Artists:** [](http://takethatina.livejournal.com/profile)[**takethatina**](http://takethatina.livejournal.com/) and [](http://patchedfox.livejournal.com/profile)**patchedfox** (ON LJ)  
**Fandom/Genre:** SUPERNATURAL, based on the music video and song "You and I" by Lady Gaga. ALTERNATE UNIVERSE crossed with SPN's canon. Romance.  
**Pairings:** Dean/Castiel, Minor Sam/Gabriel  
**Rating:** R  
**Word Count:** 12,797 (13,444 with final notes)  
**Warnings:** Obsession, death!fic, light implications of body horror, confusing non-linear storytelling

**Summary:**

 

 

 

 

  


There’s a little pain. It goes so fast that it’s barely anything, and maybe it was a hell of a lot of pain, but it was so fast—

 

Sammy’s calling his name, and isn’t that just like him?

 

He wonders, briefly, if he’ll see Cas. Cas is the first to come to mind, since he’s the most recent, but then he sees Jo and Ellen, and Rufus, and Ash, and they just pass him with a smile and a nod.

 

He tries to reach out to them, but something pulls him back. He sees Cas, but he seems different. He sees him from above, wearing the whole damn ensemble with the trench coat while it’s probably a hundred degrees on that dusty, sun-scorched road.

 

And Dean slams down, opens his eyes to a dim, dead room.

 

 

“I think I… I think I love you, Dean.”

 

And he doesn’t know if he’s done it right, but Dean’s mouth twists into an unsure sort of smile that becomes a full-on grin, and he knows everything’s going to be perfect.

 

 

He made the trip on a bus. It was the first thing he’d learned outside, the first time he’d left.

Back then, he’d been making his bid for freedom. It took about a year or so and a few philosophy courses at the college for him to realize what freedom was—not his, while he made his own ties to the earth. The day he fell—no, the day the original fell—he tied himself to the earth.

 

To love.

 

That was his freedom, his free will—tying himself down—and wasn’t that just ironic? Then again, humanity was filled with its intricacies, and he allowed himself to understand them as well as he could manage.

 

[He walked the road the bus wasn’t willing to drive on, his coat hot and uncomfortable. He needed to be recognized, though, when he arrived, so he didn’t take it off.](http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn153/takethatina/You%20and%20I%20artwork/1backintown.jpg) Gabe used to remark on it all the time, how the trench coat seemed to be his ‘thing’.

 

He wondered if Gabriel was still around. If Sam was, then there was his answer, but he hadn’t been in contact with Sam, either. He hadn’t been in contact with anyone, really.

 

He didn’t even have friends. He had many who’d tried, but he’d carefully snipped the vines that came near, allowed them to surround him but never overwhelm him. There were one or two—Abbey, and Lawrence, they were smart enough to know that ‘Jimmy’ wasn’t exactly letting them in, but he hung out with them, he went to the parties he was invited to—they could have an illusion of friendship as long as they kept away from what was real.

 

What was beyond James ‘Jimmy’ Novak was for no one to touch.

 

He could see the barn. He remembered bursting lights, very human fear in very human eyes, and a warmth only something so close to him could grant.

 

He could see the house, too. It was darker, now, decaying in the smallest of places. Where he’d seen it once bright, he knew it was falling apart, where strangers would just see an old house.

 

It felt surreal to walk down the path, go up to the door.

 

The lock was rusted, but it gave to the key he kept with him. He’d taken care of that key. He would slip it into his pocket every day, along with his apartment keys and his wallet with the fake IDs, touch it whenever he reached in. It was sensory memory that brought everything back.

 

The door swung open, and it even smelled the same—a strange mix of alcohol and dust, the faintest hint of formaldehyde when he crossed the threshold.

 

The kitchen was dirty—the closest thing to his memory from before. It’d always been dirty, really, and _what would you expect from a house with only boys_ , Abbey would say.

 

The drawers were still stocked with the things Bobby had given them, the usual fare for spells and summoning and all the things they might have needed, once upon a time.

 

There was the vague, woven shape of an angel hanging above the back door. Someone obviously had a sense of humor.

 

He smiled, for the first time since arriving. Laughed, feeling emotion rushing through them without knowing exactly what he was supposed to be feeling.

 

And then a groan from the living room snapped him out of the moment.

 

 

Dean woke to the smell of something sickening, and realized that he had his face pressed to a floor caked with drying blood. He was sure the blood was his, but he wasn’t wounded. There weren’t any marks on him—

 

There weren’t any marks.

 

He groaned, lifting himself weakly and sitting up, his head landing on a ratty couch. He had this horrible pain in his side, but when he checked it, there was no wound. Lots of blood, but no damage, and soon, even the pain went away, like some phantom ache he couldn’t place if he tried.

 

He was alone in a house he didn’t recognize. Never a good sign, that.

 

When he got up, his blurred vision traced the outline of someone standing in the kitchen.

 

He staggered over, crossing the threshold and finding himself in a ruin. The roof was still intact, but barely holding. The sinks were rusting, the tiles dirtied, and broken dishes were strewn all over the place. The table was upturned, like there’d been a fight.

 

There was blood—not enough to indicate anyone dying, but quite a bit of it, brown, almost black, on the wood.

 

He wondered what happened.

 

_“Hello Dean.”_

 

He started, looking around. For a second there, he thought he saw—

 

Nah. It couldn’t be.

 

He ran into the kitchen, finding it devoid of life. It was dilapidated, broken in a hundred different ways, its table and chairs splintered and upturned, most of its dishes in pieces, silverware soiled and bent.

 

He ran a hand over the cracked tiles of the sink, spotting one of the drawers on the floor. What was left of it still had the familiar set of materials Bobby had in his own kitchen, jars shattered and boxes half opened, contents sullying the white (or he assumed it _used_ to be white) floor.

 

As soon as he’d taken a step, something crunched under his boot. When he looked down, he found a hard, woven-straw angel, cracked in half and one wing missing. Where he guessed was a halo, only a stick leading up from the head was left.

 

“Damn. What the hell happened here?” he muttered to himself, standing the angel upright on the counter. With one glance, he looked through the window above the kitchen sink and saw a cornfield a little ways away. By now it was a wild kind of growth, and the grass before it wasn’t any better, if a bit shorter.

 

For a second there, in the silence, he thought he could hear piano music.

 

Out in the field.

 

How the hell—

 

_“Dean!”_

 

He spun around, battle ready even without a single weapon on him. He was not getting caught with his pants down, thank you.

 

It was a ghost, he thought. It had to be. The rushing of two bodies, one pushing the other, like in a fight, went right through him in a rush of cold and echoing shouts he couldn’t make out.

 

“Son of a—” Before he could even turn, they were gone again, paying him no heed.

 

Death echo. That was a death echo of some kind. Empty house, ghosts, ingredients for spells… Obviously, whoever lived in this house was just asking for trouble.

 

Seeing as there was no one to ask to confirm this, Dean refocused on the piano music—out in the field—and walked out the back door of the house, stepping into the little forest that came up to his knees.

 

As far as he could see, it _used_ to be a lawn.

 

The field was still a field, meaning it was thick and he’d probably get lost in it, but he had good enough ears. As long as whoever it was crazy enough to drag a piano out into a corn field didn’t stop playing, he should have his answers soon enough.

 

 

The day they clipped his wings, the day he couldn’t bear to think of, was the first time he’d ever seen Dean so angry.

 

No, angry didn’t even cut it. He’d been murderous, a force of nature where once there was a man.

 

And where there used to be four of the best in their garrison, there were scorched wings in the cornfield, knocking down a number of the stalks. If helicopters ever ventured close to that place, they would have seen the shapes of wings in dead cornstalks, black and infertile against the green.

 

He couldn’t regret it very much, though, not when Dean carried him so tenderly—as new as his first fumbling love confession—and lay him down on the bed that night, made love to him until he lost count of the times.

 

The heat of Dean’s possession was like a forest fire, and it was the first time he’d ever thought to be just a little scared of this human.

 

Not when he killed four angels, no, but when they made love, when Dean took him and took him and whispered that he would _never_ let him go, punctuated with every hard thrust, with the press of his hands, his body, all over him.

 

“Cas,” Dean had sobbed when they were done, like he’d lost him already.

 

But Castiel had murmured promises, vows to never leave Dean behind, and he’d meant every single one of them.

 

At the time.

 

 

Every now and then, Dean would find himself in a weirdly shaped clearing in the cornfield that looked suspiciously like… but he couldn’t be sure.

 

He looked around, walked the perimeter, and—yes, those were wings.

 

The ground was blackened, had been for a long time now.

 

He’d passed through four. Four angels that had died on that corn field, and it made enough sense, if someone had gotten the drop on them while hiding in the growth.

 

He could only wonder who had the stones to do that.

 

The piano music sounded much closer now, but it got harder to pinpoint, especially when Dean couldn’t even tell if he was walking a straight line.

 

Close, now.

 

_“You’re out of control!”_

 

Dean spun around, tensed for a fight, but there was nothing. It was the same kind of call, the call of a death echo, but none he could see.

 

Looking over his shoulder, Dean kept walking, his pace speeding up. It wasn’t until he looked forward again that he realized he’d found the source of the piano music.

 

“Dean?”

 

Dean looked up, bewildered, at his brother sitting on the top of the piano while someone played a cheery, but vaguely haunting tune on it.

 

“Sam? What the hell?”

 

Sam looked at him for a long time, and the guy sitting in front of him and the piano didn’t even look up, kept playing like nothing was wrong.

 

“Um… wow,” Sam said in the very same tone he used when he wasn’t sure how to approach a situation.

 

He jumped off the side of the piano, and finally, the player stopped.

 

“This is… different,” Sam said, actually lifting his fingers to brush Dean’s face and his arms. Dean jerked away.

 

“Whoa, whoa, man, what the hell?” Dean demanded.

 

“Even sounds real,” Sam said. “You put a lot of effort into this one, Gabe?”

 

“Sorry, Sammy,” said the piano player, turning in his chair to face Dean.

 

Gabriel. As in, the Trickster. As in, the Archangel. [His brother and a dead archangel sitting on and at a piano in the middle of a cornfield, yeah, because that wasn’t weird at all.](http://pics.livejournal.com/patchedfox/pic/00009y0f/s640x480)

 

“That,” Gabe said, pointing, “is _not_ one of mine.”

 

“Then who—”

 

“I’d like to ask the same question. What the hell is going on? Where the hell am I? And…. What the hell are you wearing?” Dean demanded, eyeing Sam’s white shirt, black pants combo. Gabriel was wearing practically the same thing, but the shirt on him was loose, like it belonged to someone much bigger.

 

Like, Sam bigger.

 

“… you’re… what are you? A shape shifter?” Sam demanded, taking a step back.

 

“No, no, no. Jesus, no. Look, do you have any silver on you?” Dean asked.

 

Gabriel tossed him something—a pocket knife—and he caught it easily, slicing a wide cut across his arm.

 

“I’m not a shapeshifter. Not… not anything. Just me. I was in the middle of a hunt with S—with you, and I blacked out and ended up in some weird old house and there were death echoes and—”

 

“Wait, wait. You were in the house? How did you get into the house? Or here, for that matter? This whole property’s closed off pretty tight,” Sam interjected.

 

“I dunno, I flew? Like I said, I just woke up in there. Where the hell is this place anyway?” Dean continued.

 

“… Nebraska, Dean. You lived here for five years,” Sam said carefully.

 

“… Nebraska? Seriously?” Dean said bewilderedly.

 

“Maybe we should start from the beginning,” Sam amended. He pulled the piano chair over, and gestured for Dean to sit.

 

“Speaking of that, what the hell is with the piano? And what’s Gabriel doing here?” Dean asked.

 

“I’m insulted, Deano,” Gabriel said, smirking. “Then again, you’re not from around here, so I’ll forgive you.”

 

“About that, Gabe,” Sam said, “where _is_ he from?”

 

“I’d say… not from this world is our best bet.”

 

“Wait, what—” Dean started.

 

“How does that work?” Sam interrupted.

 

“A really powerful angel could do something like this, you know. Or something bigger. Either way, this Dean got landed here for some reason,” Gabriel explained.

 

“Okay, so just zap me back,” Dean said. “You’re a super-powerful archangel, aren’t you? I’m sure something like this is just peaches and cake for you.”

 

“As much as I’d love to,” Gabriel said, “he might be here for a big reason, and I wouldn’t wanna cross any powerful ascended beings by getting in the way of that. So I think we should try checking why he’s here first.”

 

“Son of a bitch,” Dean muttered. “Okay, so what, I’ve got some moral to learn or what?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“Okay, so let’s start with the easy bit,” Dean said. “What was your Dean like?”

 

Sam and Gabe exchanged uncomfortable glances.

 

“Well for one thing,” Sam said uncertainly, “our Dean is dead.”

 

Dean’s face remained impassive. “Great. Okay, so I kicked the bucket early. From what? A hunt? An attack?”

 

“Suicide, Dean. You committed suicide.”

 

Dean froze.

 

No… he couldn’t have.

 

“That’s impossible,” he said stonily.

 

“Not here, obviously,” Gabe muttered.

 

“Why the hell would I—” The truth of it was that he had a thousand reasons from his own world, his own life, that he could see as justification for the deed, but he couldn’t think of a single one that would push him far enough—that pushed him far enough. He’d taken all that shit, and he’d stayed alive because of something or other—Sam, mostly.

 

Obviously, that wasn’t the case here.

 

“It was Cas, Dean. It was all about Cas,” Sam said.

 

Cas. Cas was dead. In his world, Cas was gone.

 

Here…

 

“What do you mean?”

 

 

The first time Dean had ever seen Cas, he’d been four years old.

 

You wouldn’t have believed him, but he remembered it all too clearly. He was a child, and every night, his mother would come to tuck him in and tell him about the angels.

 

She would say that they watched over him, every night and every day and every moment. They protected him, she said, from the monsters.

 

The monsters that took his father. The monsters that killed John.

 

Mary Winchester of the Campbell family (it never once occurred to her to take back her maiden name—they knew well enough, and she loved John too much, dedicated everything she did after his death to his name) became one of the most well-known hunters in the area and wherever she blazed a trail.

 

She couldn’t bear to leave her children, but she certainly couldn’t bring them around with her, deprive them of a home. And so, in some semblance of a normal life, Mary would get a house—a small one, but a house all the same—that she would keep for five or so years, and then they would move.

 

In her mind, she could still keep her promise to John and herself, to give her boys a home.

 

And whenever she left for a hunt, she would ask the friends she’d made over time—Bobby Singer, Pastor Jim, Missouri Moseley—as well as some of the family, sometimes even her mother (Samuel was long gone, another mark in her past that needed mending) to take care of the boys.

 

But whenever she would leave, she never forgot to tell Dean two things.

 

One was to take care of Sammy. She didn’t have to say it, but Dean had gained a sense of responsibility too heavy for a child, and always wanted orders to make him feel like he was doing something like Mommy was. Mommy was a hero, and he wanted to do all that he could to help her.

 

So she said, “Always take care of your brother,” the biggest responsibility she could ever bestow on anyone.

 

The other thing that she never failed to tell him every night, and when Dean got older, every time she left:

 

“Angels are watching over you, Dean.”

 

. She never stopped reminding him because it was all she could believe.

 

Angels would never disappoint her, in her mind. Angels became her staple, her pillar to hold her up when all she wanted to do was curl up and die.

 

Angels were unknowable; therefore, they could never disappoint her. They weren’t like other supernatural creatures—corrupt, dark things that went for blood or power or harm.

 

Angels were beyond anything she knew. Angels were what she attributed to her sons’ survival. Angels were what led her to every step that drew her closer to the creature that killed John, the one that nearly got Sammy.

 

Angels. Always angels.

 

Sam, when he’d gotten older, was disbelieving of them and their mother’s faith in them (obsession, he’d started calling it when he was twelve), but Dean…

 

Dean always believed. Dean believed because he’d seen one.

 

When he was four years old, the night Daddy had been killed by the thing that set fire to their house, Dean had been asleep in his bed, safe as Mommy had said he’d be.

 

In his dream, he saw an angel.

 

This angel stood beside him on a dock. He didn’t look like an angel, but somehow, Dean-at-four knew exactly what he was. Even with the grubby trench coat, the messy suit and hair, he somehow knew that this was an angel.

 

And the angel spoke to him.

 

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he’d said. “I can’t find a way back. I know I need to get back to you. I need to make things right. I need to make it up to you, but I can’t find my way. I’m barred from our world, somehow, I need to—but no, you’re a child, and not my Dean. I’m sorry for troubling you.”

 

[Although Dean didn’t understand most of that, he’d reached out to hold the angel’s hand, and tried to hug him, because that was what Mommy and Daddy would do when he felt sad.](http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn153/takethatina/You%20and%20I%20artwork/2Hands.jpg)

 

“At this moment… I believe you should wake up now, Dean,” the angel had said gravely, and Dean had woken up to heat and flames and Mommy calling out and screaming.

 

Immediately, he’d run to Sammy’s room, and Mommy had pushed Sammy into his arms and had told him to run outside and not to look back.

 

The whole time, Dean could feel the hand on his shoulder, and he knew that Mommy had told him the truth.

 

Angels were watching him, and he had one of his own.

 

This stayed with him even into adulthood, even when Sam had run off to college and Mom hadn’t even tried to stop him. Dean never stopped hunting, never stopped helping their distant mother to find the creature that had taken Dad.

 

And he had never stopped believing in angels—that was, _the_ angel. The one from his dreams, long ago.

 

And when he met Castiel a second time, it was like his whole world had shattered and rebuilt itself in one infinitesimal moment. His faith had been shattered one too many times, with his mother’s death, with the deal for Sam’s life, he’d just given up. He had nothing to live for, now that Sam could go on without him (and he could, despite Sam’s protests).

 

When he was brought back, the very reason that he built his new life around was the angel. _The_ angel. _His_ angel.

 

His name was Castiel, and he’d been Dean’s ever since the first moment they’d met in his dreams, whether the angel knew it or not.

 

\--

 

His name was Castiel, and he was the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition. The whole thing was one hell of a bombshell to drop on Sam, who’d tried everything to get his brother back.

 

He’d never thought of angels. Somehow, he felt like he’d failed. Like Dean might have thought of it if he’d been topside.

 

And yet, the prayers that were aimed at no one were answered by the very beings his mother whispered to him when he was a child.

 

Dean played it off as something to laugh at, something to rub in Sam’s face.

 

“Fuckin’ told you, Sammy. Mom was right. Angels,” he’d said, chuckling. But Sam could see the change in him. There was joy in Dean, something he hadn’t seen since… since forever. Since Dad, he supposed, but he didn’t know Dad well enough. Not like Dean.

 

There was also an anger that he could see, simmering behind Dean’s eyes. He couldn’t understand why.

 

When Lilith had taken Dean away, Sam had nothing to hold onto but revenge, and a way to get Dean back. When the latter failed, the former was all he identified with.

 

Even when Dean came back, it felt like his brother was still lost to him.

 

Even more so, it felt like something else had taken Dean away from him, and this time, it was an angel. It—he—Castiel had saved Dean. Probably without knowing it, Castiel had taken his brother away.

 

Dean was tied to the angel by that abstraction of a profound bond and by Dean’s own ingrained obsession. Sam had to wonder sometimes… what would Mom have said if she’d been around to see it?

 

To see Dean “god’s-gift-to-women-everywhere” Winchester looking after a socially-awkward holy tax accountant of an angel with such hungry eyes.

 

 

“Well, let’s see… So you have a Castiel in your world?” ‘Other-Sam’ Sam asked thoughtfully, still seated atop the piano like it wasn’t weird at all.

 

Dean grunted, “Had.”

 

Sam raised an eyebrow.

 

“What happened?”

 

_Frigging soul hungry power play. Crowley tricking the crap out of him. Raphael and the dick squad rallying it up in heaven. Cas forgetting to fucking ask us for help._

 

“It’s a long story. Let’s just say it didn’t end well for anyone,” Dean said, avoiding the subject completely.

 

“Yeah, like Cas biting the bullet and kicking the bucket here ended well for anyone,” Sam muttered.

 

“Okay, so how the hell did that happen anyway? Raphael? Did the angels decide to stage an attack? What happened to Cas?” Dean demanded, glancing between Sam and Gabriel. The archangel hadn’t yet given his two cents about the situation, but it looked like he was planning something anyway.

 

“No, Dean,” Sam said. “We beat the devil. We killed Lilith. The angels went back to heaven, the apocalypse was stopped. Five years ago, we moved here to Nebraska and set up a house. That should have been it.”

 

“Should have been. So what happened? And why the hell Nebraska?” Dean remarked, throwing his head to the side and looking up at the corn rows lining the field.

 

Sam raised his hand to gesture to the area.

 

“Nebraska is the eighth least densely populated state in America. Next neighbor’s almost half a mile off, and all this land is ours. And we needed somewhere to hide…” Sam trailed off, his eyes absently gazing at the large barn at the edge of the field, looming stationary and solitary before the land cut off into the forest.

 

“To hide?”

 

“To hide Cas,” Sam finished.

 

“Why the hell would we need to hide Cas?” Dean demanded.

 

“The angels, Dean,” Sam said pointedly. When Dean still didn’t get it, he sighed.

 

“The angels weren’t exactly happy with Cas, but they couldn’t do anything about the almost-Apocalypse going down in flames, so they took it out on him. They clipped his wings and took away his power. He couldn’t hide them anymore, and he couldn’t fly with them, and we couldn’t exactly cut off the stalks. That would have been worse than amputating a leg or an arm,” Sam explained.

 

“We were on a hunt. Cas was helping us that time, this was like… a year after the whole apocalypse fiasco, when we jammed Lucifer back in the cage? It was just another hunt… until the angels found us. It was in this field that they did the deed and you,” Sam said, pointing at Dean significantly, “ganked four angels. Where we’re standing? This was Raphael.”

 

Dean looked down and saw the abstract shape of wings and burnt earth. It looked as though this space had been widened, stalks cut off but not burnt, just to make space for the clearing, and yet even without the extra space, he could see how big the damn shape was and how much power must have been released when the archangel was killed.

 

“This? I—I mean, other me ganked a frigging archangel?”

 

“You were pretty damn angry at the time, Dean,” Sam said.

 

“Understatement,” Gabriel supplied finally. “The reason the other angels took off was because they were afraid of you, Deano. You went from _Michael’s vessel_ to _Angel killer_ in one fell swoop. All for the little angel who could.”

 

“Cas, Dean. You did it for Cas,” Sam explained.

 

“Why? I mean… I guess… but how?”

 

Sam looked at him almost pityingly.

 

“Dean… didn’t you love him?” he asked carefully.

 

“Loved him? What do you mean, like… I mean, he was practically a brother to me, obviously—” Dean began, but the look on Sam’s face told him that that wasn’t the kind of love he was talking about.

 

“You mean… other me and Cas were…”

 

“Involved,” Sam finished.

 

“Wait, wait… How’d that even… You’re kidding me, right?” Dean asked lamely, already knowing that this was nothing to joke about.

 

“The hell happened… how?”

 

“Beats me. I mean, you always had this thing for the angels, what with Mom and all, but Cas… it was like a whole other thing with Cas. Every time you looked at him, it was like you were looking at someone you’d known for a long time, even when it was the first time he’d come to us and saved you. And then in the apocalypse thing, I dunno when it happened, but next thing I knew, Cas was acting different. I mean, you pretty much covered it up but Cas is like the standard for social awkwardness, and the two of you—”

 

“All right, all right, Sammy, I get it. Mom and her angels, huh… So what, this me still believed in the angel stuff before?” Dean asked.

 

Sam looked at him strangely, like he’d just grown three heads and a tail from his neck.

 

“Believed? Dean, you were practically obsessed. I mean, Mom didn’t help, what with all the reminders and the thing with Dad, but—”

 

“Wait. Wait a frigging minute. What thing with Dad? And why’re you talking about Mom like you knew her?” Dean demanded angrily.

 

A dawning realization seemed to spread through Sam, his eyes widening at the thoughts scrambling in his head.

 

“Dean… that night in the nursery… the fire… who did the demon kill?” Sam asked slowly.

 

“What the hell kind of question is that, Sam?”

 

“Answer, Dean,” Sam ordered stonily.

 

“Mom!” Dean answered angrily.

 

“Dean… Azazel killed Dad in that fire. Mom raised us in the life. Taught us how to hunt. That’s… that’s the difference between us. Here, it was all Mom,” Sam said.

 

Dean paused, his eyes flickering shock and anger and curiosity all at once. Mom raised them in the life… Dad died… what kind of life must that have been like? Everything that had happened in his own world pretty much came to pass in this new one, and yet the differences must have been enormous…

 

“So what? She still died, didn’t she? I mean, the way you were talking… did she make that deal?” Dean asked.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, she did,” Sam said, the little anger rising from him deflating immediately.

 

“But she got out.”

 

“Yeah… that time with the gate… and we saw her in heaven that one time…”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They were steeped in silence the next few moments, staring each other down as if trying to figure out what to say next.

 

“So, um,” Dean said, clearing his throat roughly, “you were saying about Cas? What, being raised by Mom made me gay or something?” he joked weakly.

 

“Naw, you were a total asshole who thought he was god’s gift to the women of earth or something,” Sam said, easing into the joke.

 

“Yup, sounds like me,” Dean chuckled. After a moment, he said, “But?”

 

“But like I said… the angel thing. Mom always told us that angels were watching us. Always. Even when we got older, whenever she went out on hunts, she’d always remind us that angels were watching us. I mean, it was hard to believe on its own, but you… I mean, my Dean, he believed it like anything. Not the way people believe in God, you know, with the whole faith deal—he was completely convinced that angels were real, that other people just hadn’t seen them yet. The way he talked, it was like he’d seen one himself already.”

 

Dean considered this, and decided that the only way that could have happened is if he really did see something… but, then again, he didn’t grow up with his own Mom. If the other Dean loved Mary as much as he did, then he could understand keeping her words sacred.

 

“What does that have to do with Cas?” he asked.

 

“Well… I dunno, I’m just guessing here, but the way my Dean talked, it was like he considered Cas _his_ angel, or something. You know, the whole profound bond thing, the gripping tight and stuff… I think with that and Mom, he really took it to heart,” Sam said. “I think he really, really loved Cas.”

 

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” Dean said, trying to wrap his head around the idea.

 

Okay, sure, if he was ever gonna go for a guy… not that he’d ever thought about it seriously, even when people (and, well, not-people) joked about it. But if there was ever any guy, Cas would have been it. He knew that all too well.

 

“What happened to him? To Cas?” Dean asked.

 

Sam closed his eyes, biting his lip and looking away, every bit reluctant to tell him what was up.

 

“Um… he was… that is, he…”

 

“You told me he died, Sam. I just wanna know how. Why.” Dean grit his teeth and focused on the blackened ground, waiting for an answer that Sam didn’t want to give.

 

“Gabe…” Sam said, “You mind?”

 

“Well it’s not like he even notices I’m here anyway,” Gabriel said flippantly. As soon as Dean looked up, he was face-to-face with the trickster-archangel, who at this point was acting as docile as a lamb.

 

“By the way, what’s the deal with you?” Dean asked, directing his question at Gabriel.

 

The archangel flashed his trademark mischievous grin. “Hey, you weren’t the only one who got himself an angel.”

 

“So what, you’re like Sam’s guardian now?” Dean asked.

 

“Something like that,” Gabriel said, his eyes twinkling. “But right now, I’m the one who’s gonna answer all the questions swimming in that bogged down space in your head you call a brain.”

 

He raised two fingers in a gesture Dean recognized, and he backed away instinctively.

 

“Relax, Dean, this isn’t angel air,” Gabriel chided. “I’m just gonna play you a little feature film. Our Dean’s life in a snap. I’ve looked at it a few times, but I think you’ll need to figure it out on your own if you want to understand exactly what happened to you and your angel.”

 

“He’s not—”

 

“Brace yourself,” Gabriel interrupted, and as soon as his fingers touched Dean’s forehead, he heard a snap and fell away into the dark.

 

 

It had taken a lot of getting used to, more so for Castiel than anyone else.

 

They had, of course, tried everything. They couldn’t cut the now-useless wings away, not without the risks of what might happen if they did, and he couldn’t fold them small enough to fit any clothing.

 

For the most part, the attempt to hide the things just made Castiel unhappy, and that was another part of their growing problem—Cas seemed to be fading. His depression was palpable, wings ruffled and feathers molting away. He was getting thinner too, his eyes hollow whenever he looked out over the fields from the top of the barn.

 

The only time there was ever any life in Castiel was when he looked at Dean, and a little when it was Sam or Bobby, but it obviously wasn’t enough to keep him afloat.

 

That was when the promises began. A few months after the incident, when they shacked Cas up in that relatively cheap barn and house they’d bought out as an extra safe house, that Dean started telling Cas tielthings that he couldn’t believe could ever be true.

 

“If you want me to, Cas, I’d stay. I would. You just have to tell me you want me around, and I’ll stay.”

 

Dean valued hunting more than anything that wasn’t family. Castiel could see it plain as day, as well as any other hunter could. Dean Winchester not hunting was unthinkable, and Castiel couldn’t believe that he’d give up the life just for him.

 

Even in the moments when Dean would come to see him, when they’d spend the days curled up in each other and talking, simply talking, about what Dean had been doing, about what Castiel had found in the wide property that allowed him some measure of freedom.

 

Even without his grace, Castiel was fundamentally an angel. His vessel bleeding into his nature ended in a corporeal body that needed nothing material to sustain it. He didn’t eat food or drink water—at least, he didn’t need to.

 

When he’d gotten thinner, frailer, they couldn’t find a way to fix him.

 

Eventually, and Sam observed this first, they realized that Castiel fed off Dean.

 

It was, Bobby explained, as far from the literal sense as anyone could get. Castiel and his general good spirits depended on what made him happy. Their presence, Dean’s most often and most especially, made him stronger as he was happier.

 

This was, they would agree later, one of the reasons he’d offered to stay with Castiel.

 

This was the only reason Castiel himself saw at the time, until Sam made it clear what the truth was the one and only time he’d come without Dean, when Dean had been injured and lay unconscious in the hospital, and Cas wanted so badly to see him but couldn’t.

 

Sam had told him, in some ways to convince him to _finally ask Dean to stay_ , “Dean… Dean’s always had this thing about angels. It was from our mom, you know? She’d always tell us about how angels were watching us when we were kids.”

 

“We were aware that Mary Winchester put much faith in angels. Many of her prayers would invariably reach our brothers and sisters. Many of us wished to answer them. Some of us did,” Castiel had replied.

 

“It’s not _just_ angels,” Sam continued. “It’s… well, see… When Dean was a kid, the night of the fire? He told me… he told me about an angel that saved us. He said that this angel appeared to him in his dream, called him by name, and then told him to wake up just as the fire started. This angel,” Sam laughed bewilderedly, “apparently wore a trench coat and looked like a tax accountant. But somehow, Dean knew he was an angel. I thought he was crazy when he told me. I was ten, he was fourteen, and how could anyone as old as him believe something like that, right? But then you came along…”

 

Sam sighed, running a hand through his overly long hair.

 

“Did you ever visit Dean in his dreams, Cas? When he was a kid? After all, the whole profound bond thing must’ve—”

 

“Sam,” Castiel interrupted, “I didn’t interact with… that is, angels have kept away from the earthly plane since our last war. The bond only came when I raised Dean, when I left my mark on him. Perhaps Dean’s nature as Michael’s intended vessel made him susceptible to visions.”

 

“Well, I guess… Maybe… It’s weird though,” Sam said.

 

“What is?”

 

“See, Dean remembered that angel… the angel in his dreams that might have been you, I guess, he spoke to Dean. Said something like ‘I need to get back to you’ and ‘you’re not my Dean’,” Sam said.

 

Castiel was silent, his expression thoughtful. Sam just sat there with him on the loft of the barn, looking out at the afternoon light of the wide property.

 

“There are other worlds, Sam. Other worlds besides our own. It may stand to reason that there are other beings like myself, even another angel Castiel like me, in one of those worlds.”

 

“So what you’re saying is… there might be another Cas who got lost here? Do you think he got back?” Sam asked.

 

“I don’t know, Sam. I really don’t.”

 

\--

 

It took him a good year before he came back to that place. Hunting kept him away, alone in his misery and resentment, as he drowned himself in jobs that didn’t need him to think on what he didn’t want to.

 

In the last job, a simple salt and burn, he’d been overwhelmed by not one, but five vengeful spirits that haunted an old house. Even as he was able to destroy the bones that had been abandoned up in the attic, some rotten wood and a heavy fall later, he was being carted off to the hospital for massive injuries and nearly half the bones in his body broken.

 

One of his legs was shot after that. It wouldn’t have been easy, but he could have gotten back into the game.

 

He was Dean fucking Winchester, after all.

 

But he didn’t.

 

Instead, he handed the torch over to the Campbells, since Sam had given the life up long ago, and retired to the very remote house in Nebraska. Some of the other hunters, especially those who’d heard about it in the Roadhouse, speculated that Dean Winchester chose the place so that nothing could bother him ever again.

 

Ellen and Jo had a different feeling, and Sam just knew.

 

“Cas, damn it. Come back to him. Come back.”

 

 

Avoidance and denial were very Winchester traits, and Cas’ time with the Winchesters had only proven that. Avoiding Dean for years wasn’t so much a feat as it was par for course for any Winchester.

 

Assuming he would still be accepted as one.

 

Cas had made up a system in his life as ‘Jimmy’ (and though he’d taken the name to avoid any painful memories, he still thought of himself as Cas because it was just who he was).

 

In the morning, he would wake up to the alarm, wash his face in the bathroom, eat a simple and quick breakfast, wash the dishes of that breakfast, and then take a bath. After the bath, he would brush his teeth and button up (he stopped buttoning to the collar after Abby told him it made him look like a professor instead of a student). He would slip his cards and his money into the pocket of the brown coat he wore when he went out, always feeling the chill of the house keys against his fingertips as he did.

 

And then he would go to school, mingle enough with people so he wouldn’t seem out of place, and pointedly did _not_ think about the Winchester brothers, or Bobby Singer, for that matter.

 

And then he would go home if no one asked to hang out. He’d slip off the coat, ready himself a cup of coffee, work on his assignments, and sleep.

 

This was the part he hated the most, the sleep. In sleep, he dreamt. Every moment in waking he spent trying as hard as he could to _not_ think about Dean was voided by every moment he dreamt of the warmth of another body, the heat of sex, the pulsing in his chest that was the result of a love so painfully strong he could drown in it.

 

Every moment of ultimate bliss, Cas resented utterly. Resented because they weren’t his, not really. They were _the other one’s_. And he couldn’t live with the knowledge that every single cherished moment he had was just a hand-me-down and a lie.

 

He just couldn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The closest he could come to comparing this experience to was that time he spent with Tessa, that stint he had as death-for-a-day. Except there was no Tessa this time, no guarding angel (and again, he thought of Cas, and wondered absently how the hell it would have looked like, him and the angel together) to tell him where to go and what to do.

 

He was on his own on this one, and even if it was Gabriel’s power that had brought him back to the field. This time, there were no people, no one he could see besides himself. He was standing in the angel-shaped clearing, but he could actually smell the faintest traces of burning, and the ground still crinkling under his feet.

 

He thought maybe the mark was still new; maybe the fight they’d told him about had just happened.

 

Then he remembered how Ground Zero kept smoking for a whole year after the attack, and wondered how long it took before the smell died out from crispy-fried archangel.

 

Everything seemed… grayer than before. Talking with Sammy, he remembered the golds and greens of the field, the faded generic maroon of the house’s roof… here, he seemed like the only thing with any vivid color. Everything else was muted and somber, a contrast that chilled him as he found his way back to the house.

 

Which was when he heard a crash.

 

It was a barn, a pretty big one, he noticed. He recognized it almost immediately; it looked just like the barn where he and Bobby had gone and tried to summon some unknowable creature and ended up with the holy tax accountant for the first time, tan trench coat and all.

 

He felt the pang he always associated with Cas nowadays. Kept walking, this time, in the direction of the barn. It was a looming, solitary thing. It would have been seen from the road, a little ways off the side of the field. There were more crashes, more strange, methodical sounds that told Dean that something more was going on.

 

They were building sounds that he could hear. He could only wonder what _anyone_ could be building in a barn in the middle of nowheresville Nebraska.

 

This was the past… or, as Gabriel put it, a feature film of other-Dean’s life. Dean wasn’t sure what any of his actions would do to affect the landscape, so he crept in through the little crack in the door, slipping inside the dimly-sunlit barn space.

 

And he cursed under his breath, his eyes widening in shock.

 

The machinery looked like something from a science fiction book… but looked as old as something from the fifties. What really caught Dean’s attention, along with the huge tubes leading off into the walls, was the largest of the…. The things…. Right at the center.

 

It was a cylinder, almost a pillar, thick around and huge and heavy and nothing like anything Dean had ever seen outside of a movie.

 

He walked the perimeter of it, eventually leaving metal for dirtied glass, stained by dust and age. There was something, suspended in water; a vague shape within what he realized was a tank.

 

Dean knocked his knuckles carefully against the thick glass, his eyes searching for a place to look. Some parts of the glass were still clear, unmarked, and he found himself looking through the largest space near the bottom of it.

 

Something floated into his vision, something flesh and… human-like…

 

“Bobby! I’m telling you, I did everything right but nothing’s working!”

 

Dean jumped, scrambling behind the bulk of the tank and watching as his mirror-image walked in from the other end of the barn with a cell in hand and dark circles under his eyes.

 

He looked like Dean at his worst even when he was perfectly healthy. His eyes were red and tired, his face lined with the stubble of someone who had more important things to do and did these things obsessively. He still had the same physique of someone who worked well and ate enough, but the expression on his face was that of someone who was just going through the motions, who was struggling through grief that would eat through him eventually.

 

Dean had gone through this too many times in his life. Every time, before things got too bad, someone would snap him out of it. Sammy, Cas, Lisa…

 

Not that he was an expert or anything, especially not when it came to his own emotional state, but from where Dean was standing, it seemed like this was what he would have looked like when things got bad.

 

“No, no, Bobby don’t—god damn it!” Other-Dean gritted his teeth and dashed his phone against the far wall.

 

Dean watched as his counterpart walked over to the tank, pressing his forehead against the glass and breathing hard.

 

“I’m so close. Please… I am so close… just wait for me… just wait…” he whispered harshly, barely but just enough for Dean to hear.

 

And then other-Dean stalked away, leaving Dean to take his place in front of the tank. Through another clear space, he looked, waiting for the figure in the glass to drift into his line of sight.

 

“Son of a bitch…”

 

[And the face of Castiel, eyes wide and unseeing, completely still but for the movement the water afforded him, floated close to the glass.](http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn153/takethatina/You%20and%20I%20artwork/3Waitforme.jpg)

 

 

In a dream, you could go from one place to another in a blink of an eye without ever wondering how. In Dean’s case, he didn’t so much wonder as he speculated that this was part of Gabriel’s little experiment, whatever the hell it was for.

 

Well, so far, he’d discovered that other-him was off the deep end and batshit insane, and he was keeping Castiel’s body (what happened?) in a tank.

 

Great. If the trickster-archangel thought that would give him more answers, he was probably as unbalanced as the rest of this world seemed to be.

 

He was in the house, in one of the rooms that reminded him of his own as a child. The shape of it, the placement of the bed… otherwise, it was unfamiliar to him.

 

“Dean?”

 

This time, to his credit, Dean didn’t jump. He turned to Castiel with what he hoped was an easy expression and found himself with an armful of angel, and an eyeful of huge (but useless, he remembered Sam telling him) wings rooted in the angel’s back. He had to maneuver his arms to brush beneath them, making the hug deeper and more intimate than he was used to giving.

 

“I didn’t hear you come in. When did you get back?” Cas asked, muffled by his head buried in Dean’s shoulder.

 

“Uh… just, uh, a little while ago. Um, good to see you, Cas—”

 

When Cas leaned up to kiss him, a little more than a chaste peck and a little less than anything that would have made Dean push him away. He had to concentrate on not thinking how weird it was, instead focusing on the fact that yes, it was nice, and trying to consider how he might feel if he was the other Dean, the one who loved Cas, the one who chose the angel above anyone he could have gotten with easily.

 

He felt warmth bloom in his chest at the thought. Cas… Cas was his angel, even in his own world. _He made him laugh_ , and if that wasn’t the cheesiest thought, he didn’t know what was. It was true, though. Cas had made him feel great the time he was away from Sam. Cas was the one who stayed right by him through it all.

 

Not that he was… well, gay, or anything, and he knew that was such a little thing in the face of all else, but he’d never even really considered it. He had to now, obviously, even as Cas pulled away, looking at Dean with such a familiar tilt of head that he just had to smile.

 

“It’s… very good to see you too, Dean,” Cas said with his ever-present uncertainty, born of the almost laughable innocence (social awkwardness, he amended in his head) that was so very Cas. “Have you eaten?”

 

“Uhhh no, I’m starving,” Dean said, making a show of rubbing his hands together.

 

He hoped he wasn’t gonna do any lasting damage, but at least he was trying. The almost dazzling smile Cas gave him, a natural quirk of cheeks that Cas looked like he was still trying to get used to, was worth the attempt at subterfuge in Dean’s books.

 

They went downstairs, and Dean recognized the kitchen, pristine and clean where he’d seen it broken and dirtied.

 

“It should take about an hour to make the burgers,” Cas said, and Dean nodded with an approving grin. “If you’re okay with waiting…”

 

“Yeah! Yeah, I mean, I’ll just… over there…” Dean said, backing out of the kitchen into the living room.

 

This was the first room he’d seen of this new world. The floor was clean as well, the atmosphere almost homey. He blinked away the image of blood on the floor, the strange death echoes and the brokenness of the house the first time he’d seen it.

 

He wondered what the point of it all was. After all, Gabriel (at least, the Gabriel they’d known) was all about the lessons. Was there supposed to be a moral to this story? How the hell did the happy couple tie in with that Dean in the barn and a body where there used to be a smiling angel?

 

“Still don’t get it, do you?” Gabriel said, sitting easily on one of the loveseats without preamble.

 

“Well I didn’t get very far, did I? If you’re trying to teach me something…”

 

“I’m trying to show you a way out,” Gabriel said.

 

“Then show me!”

 

“I can’t!” Gabriel sighed. “I mean, it’s not that simple. As much as I hate to admit it, I have no idea what the hell I’m supposed to do. I’m just that guy trying to DIY dimensional relational cosmic power.”

 

Dean clasped his hand over his eyes wearily, taking deep breaths to calm himself while Gabriel watched thoughtfully. This Gabriel was much more serious than the other one, like the traces of arrogance and mischief still present in this one were remnants of their Gabriel before something knocked him right out of orbit.

 

“What can you actually tell me, then?” Dean asked.

 

“Well… one thing: You’re not the only one,” Gabriel revealed. “That is, you’re not the only one from your world who’s here.”

 

“What?” Dean demanded, bewildered, “Who else is here? Sammy?”

 

“What? No, genius. You saw my Sam. As long as he exists, _alive_ , your Sammy is probably tucked safe in your world away from here.”

 

“But what about—”

 

Gabriel sighed, tutting patiently. “I told you, Dean.   _He’s_ dead. The only reason you’re even _allowed_ to be here is because of that.”

 

Dean had almost forgotten that. It was an idea that had been floating around in the back of his mind, what with the slow spiral down that he could see in his counterpart’s past experiences, but it never really struck him that this was _him_ in another world and remembered how badly that sat with him.

 

And the questions came back.

 

Why the hell would he ever kill himself, alternate universe or not?

 

The other-Sam’s voice came unbidden to his mind.

 

_It was Cas, Dean. It was all about Cas._

 

When he looked up, Gabriel was gone, and the smell of sloppy joes drifted in from the vaguely colorless kitchen, snapping him back into the present (the past?), and his situation, and Castiel actually _humming_ in the kitchen above the sound of cooking.

 

Making a decision, Dean stood up, stepping carefully across the threshold between the hallway and the kitchen and standing there at the entrance for a while, surveying the length of Castiel’s wings running down his back and stretching long enough to rest against the floor.

 

The presence of them was different from his own Cas. With Castiel’s wings before, unknowable and invisible, he emanated a sense of proud authority, the same arrogance that every angel had in some small way.

 

Seeing them like this, as soft and relaxed as this Cas was, was entirely different. If he didn’t already know Cas, he realized, this one was so very easy to fall in love with.

 

“So, how’s it going?” he dared to ask, and Cas looked over his shoulder with a curious expression that went perfectly with his bright blue eyes.

 

“As you’ve said before, as long as I haven’t burned anything bigger than a wooden spoon, it’s going fine,” Castiel responded with the smallest blooming of humor in his eyes.

 

“Sounds just like me,” Dean murmured, and said louder, “Well hey, at least you can cook. Don’t think I’ve ever even been near anything that’s remotely a kitchen.”

 

Cas nodded at that with an even wider grin, reminding Dean briefly of the one he met in 2014, gone native and hopped up and more zen-like than Dean ever even considered him as.

 

This Castiel was much more like the one he knew, and yet much harder to believe compared to druggie Cas.

 

“Well, you’re in this one. That counts for something,” Cas teased back in that plain, matter-of-fact way of his, making Dean’s heart flood with more warmth than he was comfortable with.

 

Gabriel had implied that this was little more than a memory, but it felt so real, and talking to Cas, Dean could be convinced that it was. It made him wonder where his other self was, if this Cas was so readily with him.

 

“Are you all right?” Cas asked.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re a little quiet. It seems as though something’s troubling you,” Cas observed.

 

“Nothing, nothing, just…” Dean licked his lips and sighed, suddenly feeling so, so very tired.

 

“I just missed you, Cas. That’s all,” he said, meaning every word with the weight of the world weighing down on his heart.

 

“Dean,” Cas said, gesturing for him to come closer. As soon as he was within reach, one of Cas’ wings flapped the slightest bit and pushed Dean from behind until he was slotted up behind Cas, looking over his shoulder at half-cooked burgers sizzling on a pan.

 

“I always miss you,” Cas said honestly, and unresisting, Dean pressed his face into Cas’ shoulder and reveled in the warmth, the genuine happiness he hadn’t felt in so long, spreading out from his chest.

 

“Wish you’d come back, Cas,” Dean whispered lowly.

 

_I’m right here, Dean._

 

And it took Dean only a moment to realize that it wasn’t the Castiel in front of him who spoke.

 

It didn’t matter in that moment, though, not when he saw movement outside the kitchen window, the telltale sound of wings alerting them to a threat they didn’t expect to ever see again.

 

“No,” Cas whispered, his voice suddenly gripped with a chilling fear Dean could feel.

 

“Cas, wait here,” Dean said, immediately going into fight-mode. Cas removed the pan from the stove and turned the gas off, carefully, in such a domestic way that Dean might have laughed if they weren’t in the situation they were in.

 

“Dean, don’t—”

 

“I’ve got this,” Dean said, stepping out to meet four angels, standing in a uniform diamond, considering him silently as he approached.

 

“I thought you’d all left earth,” Dean said, remembering what he learned from Sam.

 

“We are not of this place, Dean Winchester,” said one. “We have come for our brother.”

 

Castiel, who had been hovering right inside the door, froze.

 

“Well you can’t take him,” Dean said seriously, framed against the same door, keeping himself between Cas and the angels.

 

“We do not mean him, boy,” said another harshly, much less calm than the first.

 

“As we have said,” said a soft one, “we are not from here. We seek our prodigal brother. The Castiel of our world.”

 

Dean’s mind was racing as it registered what they meant. _Their_ Castiel. _Their_ world.

 

“You’ll have to be more specific than that. I hear there’s a whole clusterfuck of other worlds out there,” Dean said carefully.

 

“In our world, Castiel was lost when he became the vessel of the creature of purgatory, the Leviathan. We have tracked his essence to this world, on its fringes and far from human eyes,” said the leader.

 

_His_ world, Dean realized. They were angels from his world, and they tracked Cas here, and _his_ Cas was still alive, and here—

 

“Then why haven’t you found him yet, if you can track his _essence_ or whatever?” Dean demanded.

 

“There is… interference. His place was defined by his essence, but there is another that carries it, and this interferes with our mission. We have come here because this second essence is at its strongest in this place. In this time.”

 

And one look told Dean that they knew.

 

“You are not of this world, are you? You are not the Dean Winchester of this world. You do not belong here.”

 

Dean said nothing, clenched his jaw and said nothing, waiting for them to make their move.

 

“You must return with us. We shall take you away from here and bring you back to your own world before we shall return to seek our brother.”

 

“And what are you gonna do when you find Castiel?” Dean demanded.

 

“He is to be punished,” said the cruelest-seeming of the bunch, “for his crimes and his insurrection.”

 

“Let us bring you back, Dean Winchester of our world,” said the softer one.

 

“No. Hell no. I’m not leaving my Cas to you douchewads. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m warning you, I’m here on archangel premium diesel,” he added, “and try anything on me, I don’t think he’ll be happy.”

 

“That is inconsequential. Even an archangel of this place has no power over the influence of those who share their origins. You are of our world, and we will take you back now.”

 

The angels advanced, and Dean stood his ground, wishing to god or some other higher power that he had a weapon to use.

 

They didn’t go all the way, only close enough for Dean to realize that they didn’t have to touch him to get to him.

 

The leader raised her (the angel’s vessel was female and stoic and official, in a way that Dean couldn’t begrudge but at the same time creeped the crap out of him) hand and Dean was blinded by a familiar light that burned through him, sent pain spiking through him.

 

“Aauuugh!!!”

 

“Dean!!!”

 

And, no—

 

But Castiel was there suddenly, holding him, and he couldn’t feel the pain anymore, but why was Cas suddenly so warm—

 

And when Dean regained his senses, he was looking into the empty eyes of an empty vessel and a dead angel, slumped in his arms and still so, so, very warm. Feathers were falling off his wings, melting off, in fact, like paper on candle wax, burning away before they had the chance to hit the ground.

 

The smell of half-cooked burgers permeated Dean’s senses, along with the smell of Castiel’s hair as he buried his nose into the head of the angel that was never his, that died for him (a second time) anyway.

 

And he felt the pull of Gabriel’s power.

 

“No, no, no, no, Cas, n—”

 

 

It wasn’t until one day, when Dean had exhausted all possibilities he knew of, that it happened.

 

He’d fallen asleep against the tank, as close as he could get to Cas now, a  body without a soul (and he never doubted for a second that his angel had had a soul), staring glassy out with eyes that haunted him forever.

 

And he heard the sound of wings, but couldn’t open his eyes.

 

_He was sitting down on some docks, fishing, and he realized that it was exactly like a dream he’d had once before, the night of the fire, the night that—_

 

_“Hello, Dean.”_

 

_“Cas?” He stood immediately, meeting the eyes of the man, the angel, he loved so much—and he knew almost immediately that this wasn’t his Cas, the one he fell in love with and wanted so badly back._

 

_“You’re… you’re the one, aren’t you?” Dean said carefully. “The one from before. From the night Dad died. You told me to wake up, you saved my life.”_

 

_“I suppose… I’ve lost a lot of time here. I’ve been drifting… I can’t hold on to one place for too long.”_

 

_“Have you been watching this whole time?” Dean asked._

 

_The angel (because he couldn’t bring himself to think of him as ‘Cas’) shook his head. “I have been pulled through time and space, to places and times I did not know and could not hold onto for too long.”_

 

_“So you’ve been time-traveling.”_

 

_“In the broadest sense, I suppose.”_

 

_“And you’re here now.”_

 

_“It seems.”_

 

_“God… God, this is…”_

 

_Dean hadn’t realized he was crying until his hand dragged along his cheek roughly of seemingly its own volition._

 

_“Dean—”_

 

_“Don’t—just—don’t. Do you have any idea what I’ve—you show up here, you fucking show up with his face and you—”_

 

_The angel stepped closer, closing the space between them to a mere foot, close enough to touch but not quite doing so._

 

_“I’ve upset you,” he observed blankly, and it was so like his Cas that it hurt._

 

_“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Damn it…”_

 

_“I’m sorry… I did not mean to—”_

 

_“I know. God, I know. I miss… Shit, you’re not even him, but I miss him so goddamn much I can’t—”_

 

_And Dean, his breath hitching painfully, extended his arms and pulled this Castiel (not his Castiel, but the first one, the one that started it all) close like he used to do with—_

 

_With the one he loved._

 

_“Your Castiel…”_

 

_“He died. He died and I wasn’t even there to protect him. I’d gotten out so I could be with him and then I left him to help Sam with just one fucking job… and he was cold when I got back and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing.”_

 

_He was sobbing now, something he couldn’t remember ever doing, even when Mom died… Sammy, maybe, that one moment before he realized he could do something about it, but this…_

 

_“… You want him back.”_

 

_“So much.”_

 

_“I have a way.”_

 

_And Dean took a shallow breath, like he’d just surfaced from under the ice, and looked into the angel’s eyes._

 

_“You have to give me permission,” he said seriously, blue eyes piercing with a resolve Dean had always loved in Cas._

 

_“What’re you going to do?”_

 

_“Please…”_

 

_And Dean, after a long, long look…_

 

_“Yes.”_

 

\--

 

When Dean woke up, he remembered nothing of the dream he had. The only thing he realized, right at that moment when the sun drifted in through the barn window (where Cas used to loved had been sitting before…), was that the tank was broken.

 

And looking at him curiously, with a look of innocence that rivaled even the first time they’d introduced Cas to the ways of being human… was the one he loved, naked and wingless but alive, wet from the tank that he’d been preserved in. His skin was devoid of marks, perfect and unmarred as even Jimmy Novak hadn’t been.

 

With the joy that pierced his heart, Dean thought he might die.

 

He reached out and pulled his angel—his lover—close, kissing him with every bit of the desperation he’d felt when he’d lost him.

 

Cas was back. Cas was here.

 

Cas was home.

 

 

Cas was home, and that was the first time he’d thought the word since leaving years ago.

 

It wasn’t fair, but Cas loved Dean.

 

He remembered waking in a tank that broke immediately when he took a gurgling breath. He rushed out, stood on wobbly legs, and was born into the world.

 

He knew nothing, remembered nothing. He could only feel things that were remnants of a previous life, and he knew when he saw Dean that this man was important to him. This man was home.

 

And when Dean kissed him, he felt a good, beautiful warmth from his chest all the way down to every part of him, and he’d leaned into it enthusiastically, moving along with it in ways that his body remembered but his mind didn’t.

 

When Dean first realized that Cas couldn’t remember whatever he was supposed to remember, he’d been despondent. For a few days, Cas (for Cas was what he’d been called, and he’d taken to the name because he knew it to be _his_ ) couldn’t console him, didn’t know what to do, being so new to the world. He’d cowered in the corner of Dean’s room where Dean failed to sleep in until one day, Dean had come to him with soft words and apologies, and had taken him and told him how much he loved him.

 

They stayed together in bliss for a long time, and Dean never left him, not one moment. They did everything together, went to buy groceries, explored the nearest town, and Dean seemed to love explaining everything to Cas, laughing about it, even, when Cas got a few things wrong.

 

Cas couldn’t remember a time he was ever happier.

 

Then the memories came.

 

In his dreams, then in his waking, memories of a past life, a _Castiel, angel of the lord_ who raised Dean from hell. He remembered the life Dean and his brother Sam lived (Sam always spoke carefully around him, walked eggshells in his presence for some reason, like he’d been afraid of something), remembered the love this Castiel and Dean shared long before Cas had even come alive.

 

He remembered Castiel dying and realized with the horror and acceptance truths are always greeted with that he was just… just a replacement.

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

He loved Dean so much.

 

So he left. He went off to start his own life, away from Dean, away from the lies and everything he’d built around this man who cared nothing for him but for the one he looked like, the one he was meant to be.

 

But he still came back.

 

No matter what he did, he always came back to Dean. As Castiel, as Cas, he loved Dean too much to stay away.

 

If only he’d come earlier, an hour—thirty minutes, even—they could have gone back to everything they once had.

 

“Dean!!! No, please, Dean!”

 

 

Dean found himself in the living room once more, seeing blood on the floor like an old friend greeting him, except that there was something else there besides the blood—

 

A body. More specifically, his body.

 

And as if remembering something he’d forgotten, pain shot through him, through his stomach as soon as he realized that the body on the floor had its belly stabbed through with what was unmistakably an angel blade.

 

“Dean?”

 

The call came from the kitchen. Dean jumped, scrambled behind one of the couches as someone walked into the living room.

 

Cas.

 

Cas was alive, and he was wearing the very thing Dean always saw him in, except his suit jacket and his trench coat were draped over his arm. It seemed so normal that he realized all too quickly that this wasn’t his Cas.

 

Then he realized that this was other-Cas… wingless… and _alive._

 

“Dean!!!”

 

Cas dropped his things and rushed to other-Dean’s side, cradling his head and looking more desperate and worried and aggrieved than Dean had ever seen him.

 

“No, no, no…”

 

And even without looking, Dean knew that the angel blade was Cas’. He just knew, somehow, and knew that there was no attack, no reason that Dean would have died except by his own hand.

 

“Dean!!!”

 

It was the cry of despair, the cry of a dying animal, and Dean couldn’t hold back anymore.

 

“Cas.”

 

Cas looked up, his eyes wide at the sight of Dean, even as he held tightly to his own beloved… already cold.

 

“It’s… it’s you.”

 

“You’re alive,” Dean said.

 

“You’re the other one. The one who was there when Casti—when I died,” Cas said in a shocked whisper.

 

Dean stopped in his tracks.

 

“You died… But how did you come back?”

 

“I don’t—I…”

 

But he did remember. A dream, the docks, permission and a promise.

 

“There was… another Castiel… another… he spoke to D—to my Dean… he said he could bring me back,” Cas choked.

 

“He—”

 

“He was the first angel Dean ever saw. He was from another world, he said. Another place. He needed to hold on so someone could find him, so he…”

 

He gasped.

 

“He transferred all his grace to my body… and I was the result.”

 

Even as he said it, Cas’ fingers scrabbled against his shirt and he pulled it open, buttons popping from the careless gesture, and Dean saw there the faintest white traces of the angel-banishing sigil he’d remembered from what seemed like so long ago.

 

“Cas… then you’re…”

 

“I’m… I’m…”

 

“You don’t belong here.”

 

The two of them turned to the kitchen threshold where four angels stood, with the same determined, stoic faces that Dean learned so quickly to despise.

 

“Neither of you belong here,” the leader said slowly.

 

“Brother Castiel. Dean Winchester. We must send you home now.”

 

**_No!_ **

 

Neither of them could move, but someone else did.

 

The figure was faint at first, but it collided with the leader solidly, pushing him clear across the kitchen and into the sink, and in a moment where nothing seemed to hold the angel down but a shimmer, the telltale bright light and rush of air that Dean remembered from the death of an angel filled the room.

 

And quickly, almost methodically, the other three followed, attempting to kill something they couldn’t even touch, being killed themselves with a ruthless precision with an ever-clearing figure.

 

The gray seemed to fade away as the figure approached them, the ghostly outline of an angel blade in hand.

 

“Just like before… in the field…” Cas said slowly, his voice frightened and awed.

 

_That was for my Cas._

 

And Dean looked, and saw the ghost of the other Dean Winchester nodding to him.

 

_You should go,_ he said.

 

“Dean—”

 

_They were right, you know. You don’t belong here._ He nodded to Cas. _It was stupid of me to try and keep you._

 

“Dean, please,” Cas begged, reaching out to him while keeping the dead body cradled close.

 

[The ghost came close and leaned down, catching Cas’ chin between his forefinger and thumb](http://i303.photobucket.com/albums/nn153/takethatina/You%20and%20I%20artwork/4kiss.jpg) and kissing him softly, chastely, and for the last time.

 

_I made a promise. I have to keep it._ Ghost-Dean nodded to his counterpart once more, this time speaking directly to him.

 

_I was waiting for you to come. You’re late, asshole._

 

“What—”

 

_Gabe said you’d be coming. He said you could bring Cas home. Your Cas._

 

Dean looked down at Cas then back at the ghost.

 

“What do you mean—”

 

_He’s been waiting for you, moron. Now the two of you can go home. Together._

 

“What about you?”

 

The ghost of Dean Winchester, the one who loved Castiel so much, almost too much, smiled ruefully.

 

_I have to go too. My Cas… he’ll be waiting for me. I’ll only be able to see him once you two are home, so don’t screw this up, got it?_

 

Dean nodded, struggling with the lump in his throat.

 

_Take his hand. It’ll come._

 

Dean stepped closer to Cas, almost afraid of what would happen, and Cas reached out uncertainly, his other hand still gripping the body, not wanting to let go.

 

But eventually, he loosened his grip, and laid the body gently on the floor, reaching up to take Dean’s hand and clasp it strongly.

 

_Hold on tight,_ other-Dean bade.

 

_And one more thing…_

 

Dean looked up.

 

_Tell Sammy I’m sorry. And the house is his, if he wants it. And that seriously, the piano in the field thing is so freaking dumb—_

 

That was as far as they got before they stumbled out of the past, out of memory, and into the painfully bright space in the fields.

 

“… Cas?” Other-Sam was hovering over them both now, and Dean realized his hand was still intertwined with Cas’.

 

“Time to go home, boys. This was just the short stop,” Gabriel said, and the two of them stood up. They didn’t have long, they knew, and Dean looked up at this other-Sam and said, “He did it for Cas.”

 

“I know,” Sam replied.

 

“And he says he’s sorry.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And to stop playing a piano in the middle of a field. It’s frigging weird.”

 

Sam burst out laughing, some tears in his eyes, not entirely from the humor alone.

 

“Take care of yourself, Sammy.”

 

“You too, you two.”

 

And before they knew it, they were hurtling back, wrapped in each other with questions they had all the time in the world to answer, with feelings that were just a little clearer now.

 

And when they would wake, Sam would be there worrying his ass off, shocked at Cas’ return, telling them about the appearance of another Cas for a short while, that Dean had been out for almost two weeks…

 

And they would smile at each other and laugh, knowing that even with the future ahead of them and the Leviathans they had to fight, they were still together.

 

Not even worlds could keep them apart.

 

 

Castiel had once told him, the two of them sitting on the loft together, about the things he wished he could do if he lost his wings.

 

“I want to go out and buy groceries with you, Dean.”

 

“I want to go and explore the town, Dean.”

 

“I want to go to school, like Sam did, Dean.”

 

“I want to see so much, Dean.”

 

And most significantly,

 

“I want to get married, Dean.”

 

“Married?”

 

“Yes.”

 

[And they speculated that it would be held in the field, and Sam would be there, and Gabriel would insist on coming too, of course, and they could drag a piano to one of the clearings in the field.](http://pics.livejournal.com/patchedfox/pic/0000ab6s/s640x480)

 

[They would be married in the evening, under the full light of the moon.](http://pics.livejournal.com/patchedfox/pic/0000ab6s/s640x480)

 

[And they would be together forever.](http://pics.livejournal.com/patchedfox/pic/0000ab6s/s640x480)

 

“Just us, Cas,” Dean whispered into his hair as Castiel fell asleep against his shoulder.

 

[“You and I.”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9YMU0WeBwU&ob=av2e)

 

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
> NOTES:
> 
> -There was supposed to be a backstory telling about how Gabriel came along, but no time.
> 
> -This fic is a monster, but it is a beautiful monster and I love it. It’s my monster baby and I am happy.
> 
> -It was supposed to be bad!Dean obsession fic, but ended up all woobly and happy in the end. Damn it.
> 
> -I totally finished this just as “You and I” played on my shuffled songs. WIN IS WIN IS WIN.
> 
> -“You and I” belongs to Lady Gaga, of course.
> 
>  
> 
> SPOILERS AND EXPLANATIONS:
> 
> For those who were not clear on the story, here is a basic summary. For convenience, we shall call main Dean and those from his world as 1 characters, and the You and I ‘verse shall have 2 characters.
> 
>  
> 
> So basic summary,
> 
>  
> 
> Dean1 is injured and his consciousness is transported to world2. In world2, Sam2 and Dean2 were raised by their mother, though most other experiences were the same. The significance of Mary raising them was Dean’s devotion to the angel stories.
> 
>  
> 
> Cas1, who died Leviathan style, found himself in world2 as a drifting essence, appearing to Dean2 in his childhood and solidifying Dean’s love and somewhat-obsession with angels.
> 
>  
> 
> Dean2 and Cas2 meet, most of the events in canon happen, diverting before the soul plan. Here, Cas2 betrays the angels and his wings are ‘clipped’, meaning they remained, but he couldn’t fly and his grace was taken away. Dean2 tries to keep up hunting and coming back to Cas2, but eventually decides to stay.
> 
>  
> 
> One day, Sam2 calls Dean2 for help on a serious job, and Dean2 leaves Cas2 alone.
> 
>  
> 
> Meanwhile, Dean1 is sent by Gabriel on a fact-finding trip, and Dean1 ends up in the house at the time Dean2 is gone, and is found by some nameless angel soldiers and assassins who want to bring Cas1 back for punishment and try to send Dean1 back. Cas2 protects Dean and his essence is pulled from his body, killing him. There is some kind of happening with Cas2’s essence around Sam1, but that’s neither here nor there.
> 
>  
> 
> Dean1 is pushed forward in time while Dean2 is left to pick up the pieces of the life that shattered when Cas2 died.
> 
>  
> 
> He becomes obsessive, trying to find a way to bring Cas2 back, in style of Dr. Frankenstein meets Bobby-magic.
> 
>  
> 
> One day, he dreams of Cas1, who ended up in that time after buffeting through time like dust on the wind. Cas1 asked Dean2 for permission to stay in the body, also saying that he could bring Cas2 back this way (somehow). Dean2 agrees but remembers nothing of this when he wakes up, so he forgets that the resurrected Cas is actually Cas1. Cas1 doesn’t remember so he starts a new life (let’s call him Cas 2.0) with Dean2, until he realizes he was a replacement and runs off to live his own life.
> 
>  
> 
> He misses Dean2, comes back to a mess.
> 
>  
> 
> Because somewhere in the fringes of this story, Dean2 realizes that Cas2.0 wasn’t his Cas and found a way, a bunch of spells and a lot of devotion, to be with his Cas again (he accepts that his Cas is dead and he can’t hold on anymore). All the holes in his plans are patched up by Gabriel2, who tells him what to do and what they have to do to fix the big flaws in their world in relation to world1.
> 
>  
> 
> To save the world and to get Cas2 back, Dean2 kills himself, waiting for the right time to get revenge on the four nameless angels and to help Dean1, who ended up there, to get home with Cas1.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, Cas1 remembers everything once he gets back.
> 
>  
> 
> Story is open ended.
> 
>  
> 
> THANK YOU TO MY BEAUTIFUL ARTISTS takethatina andpatchedfox FOR THEIR BEAUTIFUL WORKS.


End file.
